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A colon is used to follow a complete sentence with either

  • a list (eg. "You need the following ingredients: eggs, water, butter..."), or
  • a descriptive or relevant fragment (eg. "There was one thing hindering his dreams of stardom: his voice.").

Two key aspects of the use of the colon are that the words preceding the colon should comprise a complete sentence and that the words following the colon should not.

A semicolon is normally used to join the following:

  • Two complete sentences (thus it can substitute for a comma-conjunction combination). This is one reason what follows a colon should be a fragment; otherwise, the semicolon should be used instead.
  • Items in a list where one or more of the items (usually a title) itself contains a comma (the normal list separator). This is to avoid confusion.
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15y ago

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